


Not a Sleepover

by writeitininkorinblood



Category: High School Musical (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Ryan and Taylor are both mentioned, as is past Chad/Taylor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 10:49:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8398732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writeitininkorinblood/pseuds/writeitininkorinblood
Summary: Seventeen-year-old guys didn’t have sleepovers, so it wasn’t a sleepover. It was just a group of basketball players who happened to all be sleeping in Troy’s living room with a pile of blankets and candy and popcorn, talking about their relationships. Not a sleepover at all.





	

Seventeen-year-old guys didn’t have sleepovers, so it wasn’t a sleepover. It was just a group of basketball players who happened to all be sleeping in Troy’s living room with a pile of blankets and candy and popcorn, talking about their relationships. Not a sleepover at all.

Chad was zoning in and out of the conversation, prioritising messaging Ryan because he hadn’t seen his boyfriend in almost a week outside of school and there wasn’t a lot of privacy to talk in the corridors and classrooms. He’d feel bad about ignoring his friends, but they were, as usual, talking about girls and he felt horrifically out of place. He used to happily participate, talking about Taylor and sharing stories with the other guys, but he wasn’t comfortable joining in to talk about Ryan. They’d all promised they were cool with the gay thing, but Chad had little practise with how that played out in reality.

“What about you, man?” Zeke asked, throwing popcorn over at Chad to get his attention.

Ryan had been talking about his dance lesson and the discussion had had Chad imagining those tight leggings he wore for ballet practise which always took up the majority of his mental functions. He hadn’t been keeping up with any of the sleepover chat. (Except it wasn’t a sleepover. Obviously.)

“Huh?” he asked, blinking the image of Ryan’s practise clothes away and turning his attention back to his friends. From the way they were all looking at him, they’d been trying to talk to him for a while.

“How far have you gone?” Jason prompted, showing no sign that asking that question was a lot more controversial when it was directed at Chad as supposed to anyone else.

Chad stilled, his fingers automatically clutching tighter at his phone. There was usually an unspoken rule that no one brought up his relationship, but apparently things had changed.

“Oh…” he mumbled, feeling awkwardly put on the spot. “We don’t have to talk about this.”

He shrugged like it was no big deal, like he didn’t want to talk about Ryan as freely as Troy talked about Gabriela. But it wasn’t that easy.

“Why not? We all did.” Jason pressed.

Apparently Chad had zoned out of a lot while absorbed in his phone. But he already knew more or less where his teammates were at in their relationships, if they were in one; they just knew next to nothing about his own.

“Yeah, but… You know I’m dating Ryan,” Chad explained slowly, as if that would make everything suddenly clear for his friend.

“And?” Troy asked, sounding genuinely confused as he joined in the conversation.

Chad groaned. He didn’t want to have to get into this.   
“You don’t want to hear about…” He trailed off, not wanting to say the words ‘gay sex’ in front of the guys he’d known his entire life. In private – in Ryan’s room or his own – he wasn’t shy about anything, but that was a different situation entirely. Ryan had been patient with him; teaching and waiting and understanding that he was discovering something entirely new to him, and creating an environment where he felt comfortable talking about everything, and then starting to do it. Troy’s living room was not a facsimile of that environment, and Chad’s basketball friends weren’t Ryan. He was certain that, even if they protested otherwise, they’d still be ill at ease with considering his relationship.

“Dude,” Zeke jumped in. “we don’t care that Ryan’s a guy. We’ve been through this. If Troy can dance and sing, you can date Ryan Evans.”

Troy flicked some popcorn at him in his own defence, but the smile on his face made it obvious that he wasn’t too annoyed. Zeke’s words were reassuring, but they didn’t set Chad’s worries completely to rest.

“I know…” he sighed, hating being the centre of attention. He drew his legs up to meet his chest. “I just… Well- no, I can’t. It’s too weird.”

Chad shook his head, his curls bouncing against his cheeks before he self-consciously sank back further into the cushions of the sofa. His phone buzzed in his hand but he didn’t want to read Ryan’s latest text whilst under such scrutiny.

“Sex with Ryan is weird?” Troy teased, not quite picking up on how little Chad was enjoying the situation.

“No, sex with Ryan is great,” Chad said quickly, before his eyes shot wide open as soon as he realised what he’d said. “I mean… Shit.” There was no turning back from that slip up.

Apparently they were having this conversation, whether or not Chad wanted to.

“So you’ve slept together?” Jason asked, leaning closer like this was the best gossip he’d heard all year.

Chad looked around at the people he considered his three closest friends and felt a swell of emotion in his throat to see they were genuinely interested, with no hint of disapproval on their faces. They were honestly as happy to hear about Ryan as they had been about Taylor.

“Yeah, maybe,” he admitted, aware that his cheeks were heating up.

He hadn’t spoken about Ryan with anyone and it was miles away from his relationship with Taylor. It felt almost like… love, and he wasn’t sure how to deal with that in its entirety.

“And?” Jason encouraged.

It was obvious there was more to the story than ‘great’, and he wanted Chad to have the opportunity to feel like he was still part of the group. He shouldn’t have to exclude himself from their not-sleepovers because he was dating another guy.

Chad shrugged, trying to look nonchalant but unable to hide a smile. They were trying and he loved them for it.

“What do you want me to say, man? It’s good, okay,” he said, fighting a grin. It was more than good, but he didn’t want to get into too much detail. It was Ryan’s private life too, and he didn’t want to share it without permission. And he wanted some secrets of his own as well; not to mention how difficult he’d find putting his feelings into words if he tried.

“Better than with a girl?” Troy asked, sounding unconvinced by the possibility.

Chad rolled his eyes. He might have to explain they ‘being attracted to men’ part of being gay again.

“I don’t have much of a comparison,” he admitted.

Taylor had been a ‘wait until marriage’ kind of girl and, whilst Chad respected that, it meant he hadn’t got beyond second base with a girl and even that had seemed incredibly lacklustre. Kissing Ryan had been a whole different ball game. Sex with Ryan made even ball games inconsequential. Not that he was going to mention it to his teammates, but he’d happily chose Ryan over basketball any day.

Oblivious to Chad’s internal blasphemy, Jason continued the questioning.

“You and Taylor didn’t…?” He trailed off, clearly trying to be sensitive about the past relationship. Not that it was something Chad was still, or had ever been, sore about. He was far happier not in that particular relationship, and he and Taylor were still on good terms. There were no hard feelings.

“Nah. Not much,” Chad shrugged, aware that it seemed ironic that he was more comfortable talking about a relationship that was over rather than the one he was currently in.

Troy nodded to himself: he’d known every in and out of Chad and Taylor’s relationship and the reminder of that only made him realise how far apart they’d grown after Chad had come out to him. It wasn’t purposeful; he’d have been more than happy to talk to Chad about Ryan, but he had to admit that he hadn’t been as engaged as he’d used to be about Taylor. That realisation sunk to the bottom of his stomach, and he jumped to try and fix it.

“Come on, then, how far have you gone?” He asked, trying to sound encouraging and supportive.

Chad tucked his legs under himself, considering how much he was happy to share, and now much Ryan would want other people knowing. Probably nothing explicit or detailed, and nothing too personal.

“We’ve done stuff,” Chad said cautiously, guarding his secrets close to his chest. He liked having things only he and Ryan knew about, but he also figured that his friends didn’t need to know that he had willingly dropped to his knees in front of his boyfriend more times than he could count. And it wasn’t like the favour hadn’t been returned.

“Dude! Come on!” Jason complained, well aware there was so much they weren’t being told.

Chad sighed. There was no way he was getting out of this situation without giving at least a little more detail. Silently hoping Ryan wasn’t going to hate him for anything he was about to say, he caved. Even as he did, he was glad that his friends actually cared about his relationship enough to ask.  
“Everything,” he admitted, before reconsidering. “Well, not everything. There’s probably a lot of stuff you can do that I wouldn’t even want to. But all the way.”

It clearly wasn’t what Troy, Zeke and Jason had expected to hear. ‘Sex’ was a vague concept that could have meant almost anything remotely sexual, but they hadn’t considered that Chad’s use of the word was meant in every respect. At their shocked faces, Chad winced.

“Don’t look at me like that, you all asked,” He whined, complaining just a little. “Yes, I’ve slept with a guy. Can we please move on?”

He crossed his arms and looked away, wishing his friends would turn their attention somewhere else so he could recount this entire experience to Ryan in all of its trauma, and receive sympathetic texts in return.

“It’s fine. Honestly, we’re totally cool with it,” Troy promised, clapping Chad on the shoulder reassuringly and offering him a smile.

Chad wasn’t quite buying the ‘totally’ part of that sentence, but Zeke and Jason’s enthusiastic nods at least proved that the three of them were trying, and he had to appreciate that. What he appreciated most, though, was that tiny shade of uncomfortableness that meant they turned their attention back to the food, giving him enough distance to pull up his messages to Ryan on his phone and start typing. Still, it was all progress.

 


End file.
